- Joined
- Nov 29, 2005
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- 887
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/0419hiker0419-ON.html
This is a great story, out of the rugged Superstition Mountains about 50 miles east of downtown Phoenix. Summary: very experienced hiker named Lon McAdams heads out on a 9-day hike into rugged, shrubby, bear-filled mountains. Leaves detailed itinerary with wife. Has survival gear, including canteen, satellite phone, signal mirror, bear repellent spray, and food for the entire trip. Minutes after getting off satellite phone telling wife he's all right, and to expect him in six days
eek: ), he takes a minor fall, which (1) splits his kneecap in half, rendering him immobile; (2) ruptures his canteen, which (3) soaks, and disables, his satellite phone. Seeing bear scat all around, he's grateful for the bear repellent (which, happily, turns out not to be necessary). Realizing that he's in a narrow gorge where he won't be very visible to aircraft, he drags himself to a more-visible area, sets out a tarp with an "X" on it, and waits--for the six days.
When he doesn't show up on time, his wife promptly (1) phones the county search-and-rescue outfit, and (2) contacts the sat-phone company to get the coordinates of his last call.
The sheriff's department sends out a helicopter. McAdams sees it and successfully signals it with his mirror. The terrain is too vertical to allow even a helicopter extrication, so ground rescuers go in, evacuate him to a suitable extrication zone, and airlift him out. He's now recuperating in a good hospital in Scottsdale, AZ.
This, I think, is a great story. For one thing, it shows how, and to whom, survival-implicating events occur: it's not so much the inexperienced guy who sets out on purpose on what he knows is a major adventure: it's the very-experienced guy who gets incapacitated by an injury caused by a minor accident. Six days is a Hell of a test of one's abilities--but he and his family passed with flying colors because of preparation, coordination of actions and planning, and appropriate response to events.
For those of you unfamiliar with them, the Superstitions can be a formidable place. Used to be a favorite haunt of the Apaches, and those mountains have had their history of crazed gold prospectors and otherwise-homicidal whack jobs, etc. I've hiked in the particular area in question, and it's rough, rugged, lots of remarkably-vertical rocks, and covered with dense chaparral which in many places makes it impossible to see more than several yards in any direction from the ground, with game trails, human trails, and runoff channels cutting among the trees and bushes and rocks in such a way that it's often very hard or impossible to tell a mapped trail from something that looks like it but is not. I've known many people to get lost there (and, indeed, will confess that on some of my own hikes there, my sense of where I was was only of the vaguest, general nature). Temperatures vary wildly and sometimes unexpectedly between freezing and 100+ degrees. Beautiful land, but it can be a real test of one's outdoorsmanship.
This is a great story, out of the rugged Superstition Mountains about 50 miles east of downtown Phoenix. Summary: very experienced hiker named Lon McAdams heads out on a 9-day hike into rugged, shrubby, bear-filled mountains. Leaves detailed itinerary with wife. Has survival gear, including canteen, satellite phone, signal mirror, bear repellent spray, and food for the entire trip. Minutes after getting off satellite phone telling wife he's all right, and to expect him in six days
eek: ), he takes a minor fall, which (1) splits his kneecap in half, rendering him immobile; (2) ruptures his canteen, which (3) soaks, and disables, his satellite phone. Seeing bear scat all around, he's grateful for the bear repellent (which, happily, turns out not to be necessary). Realizing that he's in a narrow gorge where he won't be very visible to aircraft, he drags himself to a more-visible area, sets out a tarp with an "X" on it, and waits--for the six days. When he doesn't show up on time, his wife promptly (1) phones the county search-and-rescue outfit, and (2) contacts the sat-phone company to get the coordinates of his last call.
The sheriff's department sends out a helicopter. McAdams sees it and successfully signals it with his mirror. The terrain is too vertical to allow even a helicopter extrication, so ground rescuers go in, evacuate him to a suitable extrication zone, and airlift him out. He's now recuperating in a good hospital in Scottsdale, AZ.
This, I think, is a great story. For one thing, it shows how, and to whom, survival-implicating events occur: it's not so much the inexperienced guy who sets out on purpose on what he knows is a major adventure: it's the very-experienced guy who gets incapacitated by an injury caused by a minor accident. Six days is a Hell of a test of one's abilities--but he and his family passed with flying colors because of preparation, coordination of actions and planning, and appropriate response to events.
For those of you unfamiliar with them, the Superstitions can be a formidable place. Used to be a favorite haunt of the Apaches, and those mountains have had their history of crazed gold prospectors and otherwise-homicidal whack jobs, etc. I've hiked in the particular area in question, and it's rough, rugged, lots of remarkably-vertical rocks, and covered with dense chaparral which in many places makes it impossible to see more than several yards in any direction from the ground, with game trails, human trails, and runoff channels cutting among the trees and bushes and rocks in such a way that it's often very hard or impossible to tell a mapped trail from something that looks like it but is not. I've known many people to get lost there (and, indeed, will confess that on some of my own hikes there, my sense of where I was was only of the vaguest, general nature). Temperatures vary wildly and sometimes unexpectedly between freezing and 100+ degrees. Beautiful land, but it can be a real test of one's outdoorsmanship.
Pelican cases are excellant but they take up lots of space, are heavy and don't fold well. 